Mockingbird

The Sound of Music— had only seemed to be “mind-blowing.” They were merely another, more esoteric way of manipulating one’s mental states for the sake of pleasure and inwardness. It would never have occurred to me then, in my illiterate and brainwashed state, to observe such films as a means of learning something valuable about the past.

But most of all, it seems to me now, has been the courage to know and to sense my feelings that has come, slowly, from the emotionally charged silent films at the old library at first and then later from the poems and novels and histories and biographies and how-to-do-it books that I have read. All of those books—even the dull and nearly incomprehensible ones—have made me understand more clearly what it means to be a human being. And I have learned from the sense of awe I at times develop when I feel in touch with the mind of another, long-dead person and know that I am not alone on this earth. There have been others who have felt as I feel and who have, at times, been able to say the unsayable. “Only the mockingbird sings at the edge of the woods.” “I am the way and the truth and the life. He that believeth in me, though he die, yet shall he live.” “My life is light, waiting for the death wind. Like a feather on the back of my hand.”

And without the ability to read I would never have found a way to get this thought bus moving, taking me to New York and to Mary Lou, whom I must try to see again before I die.

OCTOBER FIFTH

It was a warm and sunny morning today and I decided to have myself a roadside picnic, something like the one in The Lost Chord, with Zasu Pitts. I stopped the bus around noon by a little grove of trees, fixed myself a plate of bacon and beans and a glass of whiskey and water, found myself a comfortable spot under the trees, and ate my meal slowly and thoughtfully while But chased butterflies on the grass.

For most of the morning the bus had been out of sight of the ocean; I hadn’t seen the water for several hours. After eating and then dozing for a few minutes I decided to climb a little rise of ground to see if I could tell where we were. And when I got up there I could see the ocean and, way over to my left, the buildings of New York! Suddenly I became excited and stood there transfixed, trembling slightly and clutching my half-empty glass.

I could see the Statue of Privacy in Central Park, the great, solemn, leaden figure with closed eyes and a serenely inward smile; it is still one of the Wonders of the Modern World. I could see its huge gray bulk from where I stood, miles away. I tried to find the buildings of NYU, where I had told the bus to take me, and where I had some hope of finding Mary Lou, or at least some trace of her, but I could not.

And then, looking at New York there in the distance, with the Empire State Building at one end and the Statue of Privacy, so dark and leaden, at the other, something sank in my heart.

I knew I wanted Mary Lou, but I did not want to go into New York again, into that dead city.

And I felt it then, a heavy weight of oppression at the thought of those New York streets, on their way to becoming as overgrown as those of Maugre. And all that stupid life moving dazedly about those dying streets— stoned faces of Inwardness, lives with minds that barely flickered, lives that were like mine once had been: not worth the trouble of living. A society haunted by death and not alive enough to know it. And those group immolations! Immolations at the Burger Chef, and a zoo filled with robots.

The city lay there under the early-autumn sunlight like a tomb. I did not want to go back.

And then I heard a quiet voice in my mind saying, “There is nothing in New York that can hurt you.” It was the voice of my bus.

I thought about that a moment and then I said aloud, “It is not being hurt that I fear.” I looked down at my wrist, still a bit twisted from so long before.

“I know,” the bus said. “You are not afraid. You are only displeased with New York, and with what it means for you now.”

“I was happy there once,” I said. “Sometimes with Mary Lou. And my films, sometimes…”

“Only the mockingbird sings at the edge of the woods,” the bus said.

It was startling to hear that “You took those words from my mind?” I said.

“Yes. They are often in your mind.”

“What do they mean?”

“I don’t know,” the bus said. “But they make you feel something strongly.”

“Something sad?”

“Yes. Sad. But it is a sadness that is good for you to feel.”

“Yes,” I said. “I know that.”

“And you have to go to New York if you want to see her.”

“Yes,” I said.

“Get in,” the bus said.

I climbed down the little hill, called Biff to me, and got into the bus. “Let’s get rolling,” I said aloud.

“By all means,” the bus said. It shut its door smartly, and began to roll.

OCTOBER SIXTH

It was close to evening as we drove over the huge, empty, rusty old bridge onto Manhattan Island; lights were already on in some of the little Permoplastic houses along Riverside Drive. The sidewalks were empty except for an occasional robot pushing a cart of raw materials toward one of the vending shops on Fifth Avenue, or a sanitation crew collecting garbage. I saw one old woman out on the sidewalk, on Park Avenue; she was fat and wore a shapeless gray dress and was carrying a bunch of flowers in her hand.

We passed a few thought buses on the street, most of them empty. An empty Detection car went cruising past us. New York was very peaceful but I was becoming apprehensive. I had eaten nothing since my small picnic lunch; I had been nervous all afternoon. I was not afraid, as I might once have been, but just tense. I didn’t like it. But there was nothing to do about it except bear it. A few times I thought about having more whiskey to drink, or stopping the bus at a drug machine and trying to vandalize it for sopors—since I no longer had a credit card—but I had decided long before to keep chemicals like those out of my body. So I drove such ideas from my mind and just put up with feeling uncomfortable and jittery. At least I knew what was going on around me.

The steel buildings of NYU were dazzling in the setting sun. On the drive through Washington Square we passed four or five students in their denim robes, each of them going his separate way. The square was overgrown with weeds. None of the fountains were working,

I had the bus park in front of the library.

And there it was, the old half-rusted building where I had worked in the archives and had lived with Mary Lou. My heart began beating very hard when I saw it sitting there, surrounded by weeds and with no one in sight.

I had enough presence of mind to realize that I might lose my bus to someone who merely wanted to take it somewhere. So I took my tool kit and removed the front panel, disconnected what Audel’s Guide called the “Door Activating Assembly Servo,” and then told the door to open. And it would not. I set the tool kit inside the brain opening. No one would bother it.

I walked into the building, a little less shaky but still very excited. There was no one there. The halls were empty; the rooms I looked into were empty; there was no sound except for the echoing of my own footsteps.

I did not feel, as I might once have, either awed or jumpy from the emptiness of the place. I was wearing one of my new sets of clothes from Maugre: tight blue jeans, a black turtleneck, and light black shoes. I had pulled the sleeves of my turtleneck up earlier in the day, because of the warmth, and my forearms were suntanned, lean, and muscular. I liked the looks of them, and I liked the general feeling in my body and in my mind that they seemed to convey: springy, taut, and strong. I was no longer over-impressed with this dying building; I was merely looking for someone in it.

My old room was empty, and unchanged since I had been there, but the collection of silent films was gone. I